Friday, April 14, 2017

Observing Good Friday

As I arrived at my gym yesterday I was informed by a sign on the front door that said gym will be closed tomorrow for something called “Spring Day.”

Well, isn’t that special? My gym is operated by the City of Tampa. So I assume “Spring Day” is a way to give employees a day off with pay without admitting the closure has anything to do with Good Friday or Easter.

Of course, this linguistic fig-leaf doesn’t fool anyone. But by this lame subterfuge city fathers (and mothers) can keep city employees happy without annoying Christians too badly. You surely can’t take a paid holiday away from a government employee. But we wouldn’t want anyone suspecting that the City of Tampa is in any way enabling a congressional “establishment of religion.” Excuse the expression, but, Heaven forbid.

A United Airlines passenger is violently hauled off a plane, and there is national outrage, rightly so. Press Secretary Sean Spicer says that Assad is worse than Hitler, and again, there is national outrage, rightly so. Forty-five Egyptian Christians are slaughtered by ISIS while attending church services on Palm Sunday and scores of others are wounded, and there is barely a national yawn. How can this be?

What about the Islamic terror attack on the Brussels airport last year, killing more than 30 people? That was covered by our media day and night, with footage from the blast shown over and over by the hour. But when it’s Christians being slaughtered by Islamic terrorists while worshiping the Lord in the safety of their church buildings, it only receives passing mention on our networks. Why?

Down a Bethlehem alleyway, sunlight illuminates a golden icon of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, signalling the revival of an ancient art being practised in the workshop inside.

The building near the Church of the Nativity -- the site where Christians believe Jesus was born -- houses a group of enthusiasts specialising in the sacred art of iconography.

They are doing so some 2,000 years after Christian iconography began in nearby Jerusalem -- also where Christians believe Jesus was resurrected after his crucifixion, to be commemorated this Sunday for Easter.

For the first time in centuries, scientists have exposed the original surface of what is traditionally considered the tomb of Jesus Christ. Located in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem, the tomb has been covered by marble cladding since at least 1555 A.D., and most likely centuries earlier.